The Joy Is Mine

Praying God's people said: amen, you can be seated. A man we going to be in John. If anyone was here last week, y'all remember what chapter we're going to be finishing out today. Or if you got a text message yesterday.

How many of y'all got that text message yesterday?

I was going to ask, do you like it? But I don't want to ask that. Here's the thing it's. It's pretty cool.

Thank you for not unsubscribing to the text messages.

I was chatting with two people in the first service. They came for the first time today after, filling out a form like months or even almost a year ago one of them- and they came for the first time today, and so it's just a reminder to me that we're not reaching out to annoy anybody. We're reaching out to help people, just acknowledge those people so that when God kind of reveals to them that it's time to come, that they going to show up and hear the message of Jesus, Amen, somebody. So we're really excited.

We don't text to annoy, we text to help people start a to God's will, and I was just I don't know.

I was really excited to hear that many of you came for various reasons today. If it is your first time. I want you to know: , we crazy, our heart is to help people revolve everything around Jesus. We believe that's how you get purpose and that's how you find peace.

But that's a that's a pretty intense starting point to revolve your life around Jesus.

But I hope to communicate to you today that the way that you receive true and abundant joy in life is by stepping aside and revolving your life around something greater than yourself. That really is the metaphor of our church. I don't like to go all Spacey, cuz it's weird. At the same time, it's a good picture for me that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

What would happen if you pluck the Sun out of the solar system to the Earth?

What would happen to the Earth? Would it be good or bad? Just y'all just tell me it'd be bad. I mean, I've never been there, I don't know what's going to happen.

I know scientists theorize about it, but my assumption would be that it will be bad.

But many of us are living our lives in chaos, anxiety, frustration, kind of lacking purpose, and I would, I would propose to you that it might be because you've plucked the Son of God out of existence in your own life and all you have to do is start revolving your life around him. And so today we get to maybe just hear a little bit more about the character of God in this narrative in John chapter 3, about John the Baptist, who Jesus actually says is like the best human being that ever lived, and then he goes so far as to say that the least in the kingdom of God is going to be greater than him. But John the Baptist, Jesus says it is a good dude. So when this dude does something, it's important for us to really kind of understand what his posture is, and so I want to go ahead and start reading it for you.

John chapter 3 will begin in verse 22- it should be on your screens- and I'll read all the way until verse 29 or 30.

After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean Countryside where he spent some time with them and baptized. Now John the Baptist was also baptizing at Enon, near Saleem, because there was plenty of water and people were coming and being baptized. In parenthesis it says this was before John the Baptist was put in prison- an argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him: Rabbi, that man who was with you, they're talking about Jesus on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified about.

Look, he's baptizing and everyone's going to him.

To this John replied: I love this response. A person can receive only what is given them from Heaven. You yourselves can testify what I said about Jesus. I am not the Messiah, but am sent ahead of him.

The bride belongs to the bridegroom.

The friend who attends the bridegroom Waits and listens for him and his full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice that Joy is mine and now it's complete. He must become greater, I must become less. I feel like John the Baptist was channeling, channeling the spirit of Brandy back in the late 90s and early 2000s. He says that Joy is mine.

Anyone get that joke?

Anyone did anyone get that joke? Cuz Brandy did the song called The Boy Is Mine. It's super corny, right do? It's super qu?

I did it in the first service.

They didn't get it either. Why did I do it the second service? It's crazy, I'm aging myself. It either means you're too old for that joke or too young for that joke, or you just think it's a terrible joke.

Any of the three make me look terrible, so we'll move on from that joke, but I did title my sermon that Joy is mine.

Thank you first row for giggling a little bit. The rest of you, you need to look at your spirituality a little bit and just make me feel better up here, just kidding with you. He says it that Joy is mind and it comes in contrast, stark contrast, to the posture most of us operate in the everyday of our lives. Right, for example, someone gets something that you wanted.

How you feel about it, I know, I know you would say public.

I'm so grateful, I'm so glad for them, I'm happy for them is what you say. With this internal thought process, that's like man, I wish I had it. I heard it said a million times over, especially when we started planning this church. It said: comparison is the thief of Joy, comparison is the thief of joy.

And when we look at John the Baptist's response, the one thing that he is doing, what is he identified by?

He is John, the. What does he do with his entire life? What do you know about him? He's at the Jordan River, baptizing people.

That's how they identify him John the Baptist.

I don't know what you do for work, but you don't do it enough for them to call you John the engineer, like John the fry cook. They're not identifying You by that, but John. That is what he does for a living, and if I'm John, I'm not John John's, the greatest man that ever lived. The only reason that I'm humble once in a while is because the spirit of God is humbling me.

It's good stuff.

But my general posture: if someone comes up to me and they're like, hey, look at all the cool stuff that's happened over at that church, I'm I love it, I'm grateful for it. The Lord has taught me in his word to have a posture toward those other churches that are successful. But my, but my tendency- I don't say this to make you think negatively of me, I say this because I think it really connects with where you live too- my tendency is to say, oh man, well, that's cool for them. And then I got like: God, why, why is it like that over there but not over here?

Or if I'm doing well and then somebody else isn't doing as well, I'm like: look at us, I've got this posture of comparison, and whether I'm comparing myself in the positive way against somebody else or whether I'm comparing myself in a negative way against their successes.

I have zero joy in that process. But John has it different, like he understands how he can receive Joy when everybody's going to Jesus to get baptized. Now, I know there's a specific contextual situation here, but I think it speaks to where we are. John had a different posture toward what God was doing in this world than many of us start, and you might think I'm not.

I'm not in that comparison trap and I would.

I would suggest to you look deeper. Because everybody struggles at some level with that very comparison trap. You might be better than others, but you but you struggle. You might be struggling with that person at your workplace who got the promotion, and you might not even say anything cuz you're super quiet and you're thinking: why' they get it?

It's cuz so and so's.

Daddy works here. Or they got the promotion because, they're just more bubbly than I am, they have a better life situation, they were raised differently than me. If I had been afforded the opportunity that they had, then I would be in the same position to. Or my boss just doesn't see what I'm doing behind the scenes.

Maybe I need to shift my behavior and show them and treat them like someone else.

Or they stepped on people's necks to get that promotion. I'm sitting here being integrous the entire time, right like that. Let's be real. That's just promotions.

How many of you a middle child in here?

A middle child meaning there's one after you, one before you. Middle child- okay, couple of y'all. Y'all are not very proud of it. I hey, I get it like I'm kind of a middle child too.

Like I got a step brother who's older than me and I've got a brother who's my twin but he's a minute younger than me.

So like we get it, like I get what it's like to be a middle child. U? You ever heard of middle child syndrome? Yeah, MCS, never.

I never did that.

But like to things thinking it might be funny, but it wasn't funny. Lord help me. But you know what the thing like. Well, the parents tried really hard on the first one and then this one's the favorite because he's younger and they, they let them do whatever they want, but me they like they haven't figured it out.

And I'm not saying that's not true.

Sometimes it is true, but chances are if your parents are fairly decent, then they love you all the same, just differently. Right? That's me with my kids. They're both way different.

I like them for different reasons, but I love them all the same, right?

That's that make me sound like a bad parent, is that? Okay? Cool, I'm just being honest with you. But we all compare in any scenario.

Maybe it's with friend groups.

You're like man. I wish I could hang out with this group of people, but this group of people surrounds me and I don't want to be around these people. I'd rather be around these people, and these people are the ones preventing me from elevating my status and having clout in the community. I could keep going and going and going.

We all compare and that comparison steals our joy.

And in a moment where the Disciples of John the Baptist and this certain Jew that we don't know who it is, and then probably some of the Disciples of Jesus are having this conversation, Jesus is baptizing on one side of the Jordan, John is baptizing on another, and they go to John and his first response is right here, I believe it's in verse 27- says to this John replied: A person can receive only what is given them from Heaven. What a great response. I don't think it's a copout, it's not. It's not John saying, well, he got that from the Lord.

So, whatever, that's not his posture- he said like no, this came from God and it fell upon him and, and so now he's being able to do exactly what I've been preparing this community for.

That's an exciting thing. The point that I'll give you- I'm trying to simplify it for you- I got some points in my notes today. It's a whole bunch of them. I'm going to try to limit it, so that we're good on time.

But I wrote this.

I said: if you have it, God gave it. If you have it, God gave it. But there's a subsequent point to that: if they have it, who gave it? God gave it.

So if there's a blessing that's been lavished on them- yes, there are life circumstances that are different, but ultimately, everything good- James tells us this- everything good comes from God.

So if they have blessings in their life, I don't know how they perceive Their Blessings, but the truth is God gave it to them. There, in anything that they have that God didn't give to them, at least if it was a good thing. And the same is true for you, everything that you have been blessed with God gave you. Now, what does that mean?

It doesn't mean that you're not in a in a different spot.

It means you get the supply from the same Source. You get the supply from the same source. So the very person you're looking at and comparing yourself and getting frustrated and thinking I wish I was in this spot or this spot, or if I'd had better parents, maybe I'd be in a better position- the very person you're frustrated at received gifts from God, and you have also received gifts from God. God, your supply comes from the same source, which means you looking at them is not helpful at all.

In fact, when someone has something that maybe you've been wanting, rather than starting with comparison or defending your own situation in contrast to theirs, ignore them all together and look to God and ask him questions.

Look to him like. I'm convinced that our God is so good that, even if you come to him with some frustrations, he's going to listen. You might be frustrated about your life situation right now. Maybe the addictions that you struggle with.

Maybe you, genetically or environmentally, have developed a propensity toward certain activities that you wish you did not have in your life.

Maybe I get it, but rather than looking at all the people who don't have that same propensity or addiction, maybe, instead of looking at all the people who have better, or comparing yourself to the ones that have less, so that you feel better about yourself, look directly to the, to the God of the universe, who has all Supply. He is the source of it. Look to him and say: God, if I don't have what I feel like I need, then I need to talk to you about it, not about them. I need to talk to you, Lord.

I would rather you come to the Lord.

I- I mean he would too. We'd all rather you come to the Lord angry with questions, than continually compare yourself, Eng. Gauge your success in life based on everybody around you. Go to the Lord.

He's the one who can give you success.

He's the one who can give you perspective. He's the one who can supply you with whatever you need in any circumstance. He's the one. So I think our starting point with comparison makes it to where we will never acrew or accumulate the joy that we're looking for.

You will not be happy comparing yourself to somebody else.

Our nation is interesting. Anyone say Amen on that one? I'm not going where you might think I'm going. Our nation is very interesting though, I think as we continue to grow larger, as we move away from maybe, the boomer generation, where we have, have a starting point of many more blessings than some of y'all had.

All the old people, old, all the older people in the room would probably agree with me, if you agree with me, that my generation, or the younger generation, is starting at a better spot than you started.

Say Amen, just a couple of you, okay, maybe you're thinking about all the things like cell phones that we, we got to play in the woods, unless you grew up in Phoenix, in which case you got to play in the sand, but the rest of you, like, genuinely, there are a lot of ways you get to start. I actually had to open up a book to do research. Now, all you got to do is look at chat, GPT and you can find all your sources, but then you can search for them on Google and read them online, utilize a PDF and use command tab to go back and forth between PDFs, rather than having a book stack this large to do a research paper. That's just one thing that clearly I had to do.

That many of you might not have had to do, but it is a better starting point for everybody.

And I know all you older people in the room are like: don't use Wikipedia, use an encyclopedia. Same thing, same bias. Go to Wikipedia, get your work cited, utilize it. You are starting out in a better place.

And it's easy for the older generation to look at the younger generation and say you don't even realize how good you have it.

It's easy for the younger generation to say these people, these, I don't know, I don't know. I'm trying to think of what I used to say about older people. But, to look at the older generation, I'm not, I'm trying to be honoring of my elders, that's what I'm trying to do. But to look at the older generation to say these people just don't get it, or they we'll say the same thing.

We'll say they have it easy, they had it easy.

They didn't have cell phones when they were growing up, so they don't have depression at 15 years old like I do. We'll just look at the other and think they've got it better. But if you start looking around you, you're missing the point already and your joy is already stolen. Look up, look at your neighbor, say, look up.

I said: look at your neighbor first.

I just look up. Just look up. You will not have the proper perspective on what's going on around you if you don't First Look up. He says: if you have it, God gave it to them.

And when he replies about Jesus, he's like: hey, this dude got this stuff from God, which is awesome.

I want to get to that place where I can look at somebody else who's got gifts. I've been on this Caitlyn Clark phase. Right now- yall judging me, I don't watch the WNBA. I never did.

Anyone else never watched the WNBA until this year.

I just started looking at it because I look at her gifts and I'm like yo, that's impressive. I don't know her at all. I don't really care about all that stuff that they're talking about, but I'm like she's shooting three-pointers farther than Steph Curry. This is crazy.

And I'm looking at the gift and I'm like that comes from God.

I, I, I look at some of these secular artists who are not honoring God with their music, but I look at it. I said that gift comes from God. I'm looking at the people who are in better situations than me. That gift comes from God.

God has blessed all of us.

The rain falls, The Sun Shines on the righteous and the unrighteous. God has blessed us all to a certain extent, and it is our, it should be our lifestyle to revolve everything around Jesus and give back to God what he has graciously given us. And John recognizes this. He looks at Jesus right across the river with way more people getting baptized than him and he's like, yeah, that's cool stuff.

None of us are in that spot.

I won't be like John, but he gives us a, a good illustration right here. So let me continue reading, starting in verse 28. You yourselves can testify that I said I am not the Messiah. He knows his Lane.

He I already preached a point a couple weeks ago on that one, when he said it the first time.

He's just quoting it here. He says: I'm not the Messiah, but I am sent ahead of him. Now here's the illustration. The bride belongs to the bridegroom.

The friend who attends the bridegroom Waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice.

That Joy is mine, M, and it is now complete. I'm I'm going to help you with this illustration. Now. You can understand it to a certain extent, because you know what weddings look like these days.

What weddings look like these days is: the bride's family spends a lot of time getting ready for the wedding, and I think it's because our culture- men don't like to help plan a wedding- so the women plan the wedding and so they spend all their time planning and it's mostly the maid of honor who does that planning.

Or maybe you get a wedding planner. Definitely don't rely on the efficient that you asked to do the wedding for you to plan your wedding and, on the day of, handle all the emergency. Anyways, I'm moving on because I've done a couple weddings- three of the five. I had to pretty much be wedding planner day out.

It was fun.

I digress, but they'll start planning this wedding and on the day of the wedding- it's a fun occasion- and then afterwards or during the wedding, the, the maid of honor and the bridegroom- well, the, the groomsmen, the best man, will stand on either side and they'll, they'll watch what's happening, they'll celebrate it. Afterwards, they'll go, usually sign as Witnesses for the marriage certificate and then it'll be a done deal. That I mean. That's a good understanding of this passage, that your job is to step aside, allow this thing to occur, do your best to help prep for it and then, when it's done, you just get to celebrate.

But let me take you back into the ancient world a little.

What would happen in the ancient world is: it refers to him as the friend of the groom. We would call them the y'all with me, the friend of the groom, the best man, we would call them the best man. They had actually a significant role in the preparation and planning of the wedding. And here's what they would do.

They would do all the planning, which was pretty intense because their wedding celebrations were.

You might compare it to an Indian marriage celebration. It was like days long is crazy. They would be hanging out all the time. There would be a lot of preparation.

There would be banquet after banquet after banquet, there would be party.

All the groomsmen and the best man do these days is probably plan the bachelor party. That's about what it is these days, not a whole lot of wedding planning, but back then they had a significant responsibility. A lot of preparation took place to get all of that handled and then the ceremony would ensue and near the end of the wedding ceremony, the groomsman, or the, the friend of the groom would be standing there celebrating alongside everybody else. The marriage would be, I guess, certified, and then afterwards was the process wherein they actually consummated this marriage.

Now we don't we.

We let the wedding end and then move on, that's. But back then it was a little different. They would celebrate through the ceremony and then afterwards they would pretty close to immediately go consummate the wedding and the job of the bridegroom- at least based on the scholars that I read, or the, the friend of the bridegroom- they would be the one who waits to hear when it was consummated, which is super awkward, but it's what they did, and so he was. He would go through the wedding, he would prepare, he would do all those things and then when the thing is the, the deed is done, they're waiting to listen for the voice of the bridegroom, and then he lets everybody else know: God, it's done, they did it.

I'm not trying to be funny, I'm just just what happened.

And that would be a joyous occasion in an ancient wedding celebration. They'd be like: it's done, it's official, it's certified, sealed they together? And for some reason John decides to utilize this illustration because he recognizes his role in this entire scenario. He recognizes his role.

One point that I made I made in the first service.

I said this: it's not your wedding. Now I want to clarify: this is a wedding between Jesus, the bridegroom and the bride, which is the church collectively. But I think it is helpful for us to understand our roles in line with John the Baptist's role, which is to prepare the way for Jesus to do what only he can do in our lives and in the lives of others, and to recognize also that it's our role to step aside and allow him to do what he's supposed to do. We've got to recognize is not about us.

That's actually what Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life says in the first chapter, and it becomes kind of your.

Your starting point to a life with God is this recognition that life is not about you. Look at your neighbor and tell him this very politely: it's not about you. Now, I know you wouldn't say that I said super cocky, but we all to some extent live that way, as the center of our own Universe. I do and I know when I do.

I know when I do because of the way I feel when I do it.

I definitely don't feel Joy when I do it, it's it's the moments when I'm having a bad day and I wake up on a. How vulnerable can I be? Are y'all going to leave here judging me if I'm vulnerable with you? Just no, if there's a yes, speak now, forever.

Hold your peace, CU.

We're using marriage illustrations. Anyways, I'm going to do it anyways. Sometimes, when I'm when I'm thinking about me, when I'm the center of my own Universe, I wake up in the morning on a Sunday and, rather than thinking with joy and excitement about the fact that I get to prepare the way- by removing distractions and setting up this place along with many other volunteers, for someone who hasn't experienced the love of Jesus to come in here, hear the word for the first time and potentially trust in Jesus and start revolving their life around him. Rather than the joy that can be mind in a moment, I, I'm filled with Dread, with a thought that says: oh, people show up today.

I hope none of the volunteers declin the invite today.

I hope I don't screw up on stage today. I hope music sounds good today. I hope no one comes to me with a problem today. And those are the thoughts that come in, and immediately they still my joy.

It's not just comparison, it's, it's a focus issue, it's the in, in the same moment that I'm that I can experience the joy that he provides for every single one of us when we simply look toward him, recognize the perspective we can have.

At the same moment, Satan wants to pull you away from that joy and fill you with anxiety and Dread about the things that, to an extent, you really can't control. And then what they want, what he wants to do, is make you feel terrible about what you're not doing that you should be doing. It would be as if I'm one of the disciples when Jesus gives me the task of feeding 5,000 people out in the wilderness and he says, hey, go feed them. And I go find the Five Loaves and two fish and I have them in my hand and then I go look at the 5,000 people and I'm like, oh gosh, this won't feed them, it's not gonna.

Two, two, Five Loaves.

If I divide it up. Two fish- if I divide it up, I got to take out the bones and they're not going to be able to eat those. And it's like, maybe, if I? No, there's no way that I can do this.

And that's what.

That's what gives me this really bad perspective in the morning and steals my joy, and this does not happen every week. I want to be very clear, but when it does happen, this is me just worrying about a bunch of things. And what God would want me to do- and this is how I can obtain joy in a moment- is I take the Five Loaves, the two fish, the things that I can't control. I'll, I'll take the preparation that I put in and then recognize at some point I have to step aside and give it to God, recognizing that he can do something bigger and Beyond what I would have ever thought.

But I've got to.

I've got to take the loaves, I got to take the fish, I got to take my fears and give them to him. And this is. You might think this doesn't make sense, but the reality is it is, it is in the process of me humbling myself enough, recognizing it's not all about me that I'm even able to take it to my Creator. If you think it's all about you, you're never going to delegate.

If you think it's all about you, you're constantly going to be looking at your children who want to go do more and more and more, and you going to keep them from the homecoming dance because you back in the day didn't see anything wrong with bump and grind.

So you're stressed out about all the stuff that they might do and you're just frustrated and constantly like in this fleshly place where you're the mo. You don't think it, but you're the most important thing. I know you care about them. I'm not saying you don't care about other people.

I'm not saying you don't care about the Lord, but you're the most important thing.

And it takes a lot of humility to hand it to God. But here's how you do it. You recognize how limited you are. One thing that I wrote down here is: if you want to see something big happen in your life, you've got to learn first how little impact you have on it.

If you want to be big, you got to learn how little you are.

This is really helpful, because Jesus actually says: anyone who wants to come after me or be first shall first be last. If anyone wants to come after me, they have to deny themselves in order to do so. The way that we come into true Joy is by recognizing we are not the fcum on which the entire universe revolves. It is.

It's him.

It takes some real humility to hand your fears to God. It takes real humility to hand your future to God. It takes a lot of humility and thought process to hand some of the issues of your past to God. But trust me, the only way to have joy is to hand it to God.

Joy comes when you able to do what John the Baptist does here.

See, look at all them people going to him. I did my job. He prepared the, the way he baptized the people that God gave him, and now he gets to look with joy on the fact that the bridegroom is doing the deed that he was prepping him for. That's an exciting thing for John.

But when I look at that I'm like I don't know that I can do it.

I know in Christ I can do all things, but it's still difficult when something good happens for somebody else. Yet I've been deep in my spirit praying to God that he would Redeem Me from something. I've been praying that God would help me in my relationship with my spouse. I've been praying that God would help my kids live a better life than I had growing up.

But for some reason some of the things that were a pain to me are still a pain to my kids and in my own relationships.

And then you look at somebody else who seems to have it all and you're like why, Lord it? It's so hard. But again, if you can recognize the truth that we find in 2 Corinthians, when Paul is struggling with a thorn in his side, he's arguing on his own behalf toward the Corinthian Church, trying to get them to listen to him for once, and he's wondering why God's doing what he's doing. And he says that what God told him in the spirit was that his grace is sufficient for him.

So, even if you have nothing, you can still have Joy by reflecting on the Sal salvation that Jesus has offered you.

You can. But there's something else that comes into this illustration that I want to take us to. Starting in verse 31, he says: the one who comes from above is above all the one who is from the earth, belongs to the Earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from Heaven is above all.

He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.

Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful, for the one whom he has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the spirit without limit. The Father loves the son and has placed everything in his hands. Now let me let me help explain this for a moment. I believe there is a pmic.

Pmic is kind of a internal argument between people in the church.

I think there's a pmic that's going on where, in the first half of this chapter, we see the story of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee- who In this passage, is really representative of Pharisees in general- who came with their own knowledge and understanding, and Jesus's reply to them was that you speak as someone who lives on Earth, but you can't understand Heavenly things. And now you have someone who comes from Earth, John the Baptist, speaking about how things from Heaven are not understood by people of Earth. So the fact that- and this is what he's saying- the fact that Jesus understands these things me, means that it comes, that he comes from heaven.

So the pmic here, or the ju toos, if you will, is that you've got a Pharisee and you've got John the Baptist.

I think John the Apostle who writes this book is trying to communicate to his readers, his listeners and to us that John the Baptist is the way to go. You come to God with humility. And then what he says- and I love this. He says: Whoever has accepted has also certified that what God's saying is true.

So if you can humble yourself enough to come to God with openness- not like Nicodemus- if you can humble yourself enough to come to God and start looking at him the way that he ought to be looked at, if you can stop looking around and comparing yourself to other people and look directly toward God and start asking him questions, if you can put yourself in the place where you are not the center of your own Universe, you'll recognize what your responsibility is, something that John the Baptist understood.

He said: the one who believes God has also certified that what he says is true. This takes us back to this marriage illustration. I said this and this is a thought that came to my mind, and I think Scholars would validate this- that at the end of a wedding- and this is what I've experienced when I'm officiating weddings- you've got the maid of honor and you've got the- the best man. What I'll typically do is I'll take the bride and the groom.

We're supposed to do this after the wedding.

A lot of people like to do it differently because they're taking pictures or something like that, but after the wedding, what you're supposed to do is take the bride and the groom and you take the, the maid of honor and the best man. Anyone know what you do. At that point you sign the marriage certificate- they're signing as Witnesses, and it certifies that that event actually happened. And then you send it in the authorities or the court and then they validate it, put a rubber stamp on it and then send it back to you in the mail so you know that you're married.

It's always a it's a fun little formality that they do.

I knew I was married when we got married, but to certify it there's more of a formal process to it. And I think in the same way in our faith- and this is what John the Baptist is saying- that your role is not to be the one who multiplies the Lo. Your Role Is Not to cause growth in somebody else. Your Role is not to change the entire future of the world.

Your Role is to simply be obedient and certify that which was done on the cross, that was further validated by Jesus's resurrection from the grave.

My whole life is meant to be focusing on the thing that Jesus called me to. What does he say? He says: go, therefore, unto to All Nations, making disciples and baptizing them in my name, no, in the name of the father, Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to honor the commands that Jesus spoke to them. Our job is to certify the words of God by continually telling people about what Jesus did.

That is our.

That's. It's that simple. My job is not to be God, it's to talk about God to other people. John the Baptist role was to prepare the way of the Lord.

He says: repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Be cleansed. Baptism. Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

Here's the guy.

I'm not the Messiah, he is the one who sandal. I'm not worthy of untying. This is the guy, the one that all the people are going to get baptized by. I've fulfilled my role and that is my joy that I get to look across the river and see the work of God Complete, because I prepared the way and I help to certify that the words that he's speaking are true.

My job is small, it's simple, but it actually is a big deal, because if I don't, if I don't, tell you guys about what God did in my life, Paul says: how are they to hear?

Unless it's told to them: you could be a mouthpiece of God if you desire to. But then he finishes with this. He says: whoever believes in the son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the son will not see life. Now hear this, for God's Wrath remains on them.

It doesn't say God's Wrath will come upon them.

What's that word there? It says God's Wrath. What remains? That hearkens back to something that was spoken in the text last week: that we are all prior to accepting Jesus, prior to confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in our heart that God raised him from the dead.

Prior to that, we are all under the wrath of God already.

This is, this is what he, this is what John is communicating, this is what Jesus said earlier. The wrath of God is not just an eternity in hell if you don't trust in Jesus. The wrath of God Paul communicates in Romans, chapter 1. The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and the unrighteousness- unrighteousness of men- and it says this: that he handed us over to the lusts of our flesh and our own desires.

The wrath of God is not just an eternity in Hell.

The wrath of God is God allowing you to revolve your life around yourself when the better way is to revolve your life around Jesus? You wonder why you're in chaos. You're under God's Wrath because you haven't put Jesus at the center of your life. You wonder why you're constantly anxious.

It's because the peace of God, God that can surpass your understanding, is not guarding your heart in Christ Jesus.

Why? Because Jesus isn't front and center in your life. You are. You will never find the joy that John speaks of here if you live in narcissism and self focus.

The wrath of God is that he let you do what you wanted to do, even when it wasn't beneficial to you.

But the grace of God comes when he put together a plan where John the Baptist started to prepare the way, and then he sent his son, Jesus to speak the true words of God on Earth, and then he would die on the cross, which would offer you forgiveness of sins, and that he would further validate that by doing what no other man could do: he raised from the grave 3 days later. So that you can have an abundant, joyfill life right now, protected from the wrath of God, sealed by God's grace. I, I want a life full of joy. I'm tired of the comparison.

I want a life full of joy.

I'm tired of those fleshly thoughts that come to my head when I'm revolving my life around myself, rather than turning and recognizing that God's mission is more important and more valuable and more abundant than my own. I'm, I'm, I'm tired of that life that keeps me me from excitement and joy about the blessings that others have. John makes it clear that the way I'm going to resolve that is by being so consumed in the mission of God and in the grace of God that I care more about that than I do about my own success metrics. And if there's anyone in here who your life is chaotic.

You have anxieties and frustrations.

Maybe you're just steeped in sin and addiction. God can turn everything around if you simply confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. So I want to lead you in a prayer right now for the benefit of those who need to have a conversation with Jesus and believe in him today, living their lives after him. Today you might say this: bow everybody, bow your heads and close your eyes.

You might say this out loud, repeat after me: God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

I believe he died on the cross and Rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin, make me a new creation, help me honor your mission, and I will follow you for the rest of my life. It's in Jesus's name that we pray, amen. Can we celebrate those who made that decision today?

It's just to start stting Point, but I